HALLOWEEN & MYTHS

At our November meeting we were entertained with a talk that involved audience participation, the speaker being the ever-popular Brian Jones. He explained that the pagan celebration of ‘Halloween’ had no original date but eventually fell on the Christian date of All Hallows Eve. The churches were often built on pagan sites, as this is where the populace we used to meeting.
At Halloween it was believed that when the sunset below the sky- line it descended into the world of spirits that had gone to hell & on Halloween the spirits came back, possibly as ghosts, for one night to find their earthly dwelling place & fireside. It was a time of danger as witches also practiced witchcraft noisily & could cause evil to human beings. Witches were thought to be able to change their form & become very light, hence having the ability to ride broomsticks, go up & down chimneys & hide in an egg shell. Children were told to turn their empty egg – shell over & make a hole in the bottom to stop a witch from hiding there. Fairies were said to meet in burials grounds on Halloween as this was the only safe place for them because the evil spirits were at large elsewhere.
In the Fens you were advised not to walk alone at night in case you were followed by the devil & should you turn around you would look into his eyes & your soul be lost. You would not hunt or shoot at Halloween in case you harmed a wandering spirit, nor would you tread on your own shadow. Animals were brought into shelter & had a burning twig passed over their backs to ward off disease & evil spirits. A Fenman would protect his house from evil spirits by placing Hawthorne over his door. Pumpkins would be placed outside the door & was supposed to scare away the witches.
The Victorians decided to enliven Halloween & because it was in the autumn when fruit was plentiful, apples & vegetables were used to foretell a young lady about her future. Trying to take a bite from apples hanging from a string, that had identifying marks put on them by the boys, might tell a young girl who her future husband could be and vice versa. Putting apple pips into the grate to see how they burned was another way & baking a dumb cake by mixing eggs flour water without speaking & patting into a flat cake, putting it in the grate overnight would result in cracked crust in which an initial letter of a future husband might be seen. Long apple peelings were thrown over the left shoulder in the hope that it would fall into the shape of an initial letter of your lover, & putting an apple beneath your pillow may cause you to dream of your future. Brain demonstrated other ways that the Victorians celebrated Halloween, with the audience participating & caused much laughter. Today the bobbing for apples is an off-shoot of these actions as is the ‘trick & treat’ which came over from America & to all intents & purposes has now got out of hand.
So just in case…. leave the door open & the fire banked up on Halloween to let the spirits come & go freely, break your egg shells, & don’t go out at night… just in case…
[Barbara Holmes]